Episode 022: Fantasy Football Rich Hribar
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Episode 022: Fantasy Football Rich Hribar

Fantasy Football, Podcast

Episode 022: Fantasy Football Rich Hribar

Episode 022: The Fantasy Coach Podcast

Fantasy Football Edition: Fantasy Football Draft Strategy

Featuring: Rich Hribar (@LordReebs) of The Faked Goods Podcast

About My Guest: Sports and pop culture tweets all day. Fantasy Football Redraft Meteorologist for @xnsportsDyno/DFS @thefakefootball and A-Z@rotoviz. 1/2 of the @fakedgoodspod @fswa #49ers Fan.

Episode Summary: Rich and I try to get everyone ready for their fantasy football drafts by taking a peek at our redraft strategy. We go over everything from when to finally pull the trigger at quarterback to how to avoid being a year too late on a guy.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers Outlook for XNSports

Episode Rundown:

Intro
We get to know Rich and find out how he pumps out all of that fantasy football goodness.
Should we be scared of Round One Running Back Busts this year?
When should the top tight ends be considered? Jimmy Graham, Rob Gronkowski etc.
Are the RBs in the second and third round that much better of a gamble then the ones in the fourth and the fifth.
When should we finally pull the trigger at QB?
Is Reggie Wayne a value or should we avoid him this year?
The Denver Brocos’ Wide Receiver situation with the concussion suffered by Wes Welker.
Late round Keeper Targets.
Players who could suffer from game flow issues.
The Coach’s Office (brought to you by RevoLabels.com)
Outro

You can Download this episode as well as the previous three on Itunes and Stitcher Radio.

Thank Yous For Episode 022: I want to thank Rich Hribar for coming on the podcast and sharing some of his golden fantasy football stats with me. I would also like to thank C-Quel for providing the intro music as well as the outro beat. You can Find all of C-Quel’s current music available here.

Episode 011: Fantasy Football Salvatore Stefanile

Episode 011: The Fantasy Coach Podcast

Fantasy Football Edition: Two Quarterback Leagues

Featuring Salvatore Stefanile (@2QBFFB) SportableNFL

Salvatore Stefanile joins me to clown around and talk some Fantasy Football.

About My Guest: “Salvatore Stefanile, the winner of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association’s award for Best Fantasy Football On-Going Series in 2013, is a big proponent of the 2-QB fantasy football movement . You can find his 2-QB musings at XNSports.com and on Twitter @2QBFFB. He’s also the content manager for Sportable — your place for interactive, bite-sized football news and fantasy football resources.” Articles and Posts referenced in the Podcast:

2-QB draft project for Sportable: http://www.sportable.is/?c17889/fantasy-football/sportable-2-qb-draft-recap/

http://www.sportable.is/?t17889/tag/sportable-2-qb-draft/

Recent 2-QB ADP (goes over some draft strategies): http://www.xnsports.com/2014/06/23/2-qb-fantasy-football-adp-post-2014-nfl-draft-edition/

http://www.xnsports.com/2014/07/06/look-quarterbacks-drafted-2-qb-fantasy-football-mocks-2014/

Top 250 overall 2-QB rankings: http://www.xnsports.com/2014/06/23/top-250-overall-2-qb-fantasy-football-redraft-rankings/

Tiered QB rankings for 2-QB leagues: http://www.xnsports.com/2014/06/23/tiered-qb-rankings-2-qb-fantasy-football-leagues-june/

Primer on 2-QB leagues: http://www.rotoworld.com/articles/nfl/47389/404/the-two-qb-mindset

Fanium Fantasy Football: http://splash.fanium.com/

Episode Summary: Sal and I discuss all of his current work as well as get to know everything about SportableNFL. We delve into two quarterback leagues Vs. traditional leagues as well as strategy and specific player targets. We may or may not discuss the movies Heavyweights, Good Burger and Youngblood.

Episode Breakdown:

Intro
Get to know Salvatore Stefanile and find out where all of his work can be found on the internet.
2QB Vs. Tradional Fantasy Football Leagues and how the strategy differs.
Where’s the drop off for the top scoring QB’s this year?
What RB’s and WR’s should be looked at in the first two rounds of 2QB Fantasy Football Drafts?
How important is the tight end position in 2QB leagues?
Which QB2 in the current rankings has a chance to be a top 8 QB in Fantasy Football?
Which QB3 should we target as a bye week fill in/ trade piece?
Some 2QB Daily Fantasy Talk
Outro

You can Download this episode as well as the previous three on Itunes and Stitcher Radio.

Thanks For Episode 011: I want to thank the guru of two quarterback fantasy football, Salvatore Stefanile, (@2QBFFB) for coming on The Fantasy Coach Podcast and enlightening me and my audience on the nuances and strategies that go into preparing for a two quarterback draft.

I would also like to thank C-Quel for providing the intro music as well as the outro beat. You can Find all of C-Quel’s current music available here.

Cordarrelle Patterson Returns

If you won a few fantasy football leagues last year you more than likely had either Josh Gordon or Alshon Jeffrey on your roster to thank. While they didn’t lead the percentages among NFL players to be on fantasy championship rosters, that belonged to Jamaal Charles with Peyton Manning close behind, they were by far the best “value draft picks” of the season. Alshon Jeffrey may have even slipped through the cracks in some 10 team league drafts where you don’t have an opportunity to start three wide receivers and made some waiver wire troller extremely happy.

The reason I think you should thank Gordon or Jeffrey before patting Charles or Manning on the back is because of value. The value that comes with massively out performing your average draft position. This massive value spike is hard to contend with for an entire season. It was even harder to contend with in daily fantasy football on sites like FanDuel and DraftKings where Gordon and Jeffrey were playing so far above the invested value that you couldn’t win any money without them in your lineups.

I’m not the first to talk about Gordon and his massive value last season. Here Michael Fabiano wrote about Josh Gordon’s value in his season ending awards on NFL.com.

Draft value of the year

Josh Gordon, WR, Cleveland Browns:
Gordon wins his second Guru Award, as he was a steal in 2013 drafts. Remember, he was suspended for the first two weeks of the season due to off-field issues — that made his stock fall in most leagues (ADP: 132.68). Gordon would finish the fantasy season tied with Calvin Johnson for the most fantasy points among wideouts.

While I wasn’t the first to talk about his value last year, I may be the first to talk about the fact that he may not come close in 2014 to hitting his ADP value. Don’t get me wrong Gordon is a supremely talented wide receiver, but he is currently going off the board in the middle of round one in fantasy football drafts. He’s going in the right spot based on last year’s production, but can he really match or outplay last year’s league leading numbers. I am not willing to bet on it with the situation in Cleveland.

Gordon is going in the top tier of fantasy wide receivers right now, Alshon Jeffrey is not too far behind him going in the third to fifth round of drafts. Jeffrey started slow last year, but really came on and became a huge fantasy football weapon. His ability to high point the ball always made him an intriguing pick, but his polished route running coupled with his run after the catch ability made him a break out star. Jeffrey even gets consistent carries as a runner on short reverses that keep his stat ticker climbing in the right direction.

Jeffrey wasn’t Jay Cutler‘s favorite target early on in the season and didn’t really get on track until Josh McCown took over for the injured Jay Cutler in the middle of the season. McCown and Jeffrey’s chemistry was magical to fantasy owners as Jeffrey quickly went from a fantasy bench warmer to a must start. His record breaking performances haven’t gone unnoticed as you can see by my aforementioned ADP for him at this point in the off season. His ADP is only going to climb over the off season as other wide receivers may be hurt by free agent moves (Eric Decker) or draft picks. Speaking of climbing, a buddy of mine on Twitter, Matt Lane, and a writer for FakePigSkin.com took Jeffrey in the first round of one of the early off season Draft Masters @FantasyTaz has put together. While I told him that was too early for my liking I can completely understand falling in love with him based on his upside.

The traits that Jeffrey and Gordon share are that they are huge physical receivers that can run, Gordon can run fast more-so than Jeffrey. Those physical traits used to be very rare to come by, but the wide receiver class of 2012 had quite a few receivers that fit that body type. In contrast the wide receiver crop from the 2013 NFL Draft was missing those big, physical, speed receivers. There was plenty of short speed receivers like Tavon Austin, the first wide receiver taken in the first round by the St. Louis Rams, but the big outside marquee guys were few and far between.

[soliloquy id="968"]

The only wide receivers taken in the 2013 draft that came close to fitting the bill of the big, fast, physical wide receiver prototype in my opinion were DeAndre Hopkins and Cordarrelle Patterson. Hopkins had made his name lining up on the opposite side of the field from Sammy Watkins at Clemson University and tearing through tough defensive backfields like LSU. While Patterson was a junior college phenom that moved on to Tennessee and became the most explosive offensive football player in the SEC. Hopkins hand size was discussed more than when Hakeem Nicks was coming out of the University of North Carolina, while Patterson was described as a raw play-maker that was as far from a polished wide receiver that had been considered for the first round in a long, long time.

Hopkins had a few nice games to start the year in Houston as Matt Shaub looked to have plenty of confidence in the rookie, but after week number three the rest of the season was pretty much un-ownable in fantasy leagues. The resurgence of Andre Johnson and the unpredictability of the quarterback position in Houston pretty much soured the back end of his rookie year. Hopkins didn’t score a touchdown after week number seven and didn’t top one-hundred yards after week two. I think the continued presence of Andre Johnson and the tailspin of a second half of a season should be able to keep him as a good value pick for next year. I believe he has the ideal skills set to out play his draft position if the right quarterback ends up in Houston.

Cordarrelle Patterson of the Minnesota Vikings is the type of wide receiver that makes fantasy players drool. He can score when ever he touches the ball. He scores on kick offs, he scores on hand-offs, and he scores on receptions. The only way he doesn’t score is when the Vikings decide not to give him the ball, which happened a lot last season. The #FreePatterson chanting on Twitter was almost becoming a grass roots effort to make the Vikings fun to watch.

The only excuse for the Vikings not to use Patterson more has to be the fact that he was as raw as advertised when coming out. If you look at Patterson’s numbers through out the year his one big performance as a wide receiver came in a bit of an outlier type game as his production was in the snow against a shell shocked Baltimore Ravens’ Defense. Beyond that one game that really was a product of a missed tackle that led to a huge catch and run touchdown, Patterson was not all that impressive as a pass catcher. His return skills and ability to run the ball once in possession of it was off the charts.

The reason I look beyond his receiving tape from last season is because of his after the catch running skills and his build. Patterson is 6’2″ 220 pounds and is a nightmare to try and tackle in the secondary. He measures up well to last year’s break out wide receivers Josh Gordon who is 6’3″ and 225 pounds and Alshon Jeffrey 6’3″ 216 pounds (that must be typo from the Bears.) and actually is a more explosive runner than Jeffrey. This off season is huge for Patterson because that’s where Alshon Jeffrey did all the work that led to his breakout 2013 season.

While Jeffrey had Brandon Marshall pushing him day in and day out in the off season, I’m not sure Greg Jennings is doing the same for Patterson. I hope Jennings is taking Patterson under his wing and showing him how a top level wide receiver works, but at this point I just don’t know if that’s the case. If not, hopefully he hired the right coaches for the off season.

Either way I’m betting on Patterson to make the leap to almost elite this season. He should easily outplay his draft position as long as your league doesn’t get too smart in the off season. I am willing to take him as my second wide receiver in drafts at this point as long as I have a strong back up plan in place with some high floor-type receivers as my WR3 and WR4. If you nab Patterson any where after the fourth round you should be able to collect excellent returns on your investment.